Friday, March 10, 2006

A big thank you to all those who wrote in to find out how I was doing.

I won't get into the details of that night of vandalism on the SRM campus here, but I will say one thing - there are some seriously dangerous and delinquent officers in our police force.

The Superintendent of Police (SP) of the Kancheepuram district A Amal Raj sprang upon my cameraman, snatched our camera, broke it and then stole the tape. (It was returned to us after we complained to the Director General of Police.) But the frustrating agony is that nothing is being done to punish this man! Absolutely NOTHING!

1) The police have refused to register an FIR.2) They have arrested two people (local goons who assaulted me) but they could well be fall guys because I have not been given a chance to identify them.3) Revenue officials are conducting an enquiry into the affair because it involves a police officer. But, so far, I have received no phone calls from the said revenue officials. Considering i'm the 'victim', shouldn't I be in the picture somewhere?

If this is the way they treat journalists then I really do shudder to imagine how the common man must suffer at their hands. The police can do so much but they do so little. It tires me out now to constantly understand 'the system' and be more sympathetic to the pulls and pressures of working in government. Frankly, whats the point of understanding?

I dont think its too idealistic to say that if you want to be corrupt you will, if you want to abuse your power you will. However if you want to be clean but poor - you can.

18 comments:

Good to c u after a long time. I was suspecting that some thing would hav happened to u in that place. Forget abt the common man, its always people who are in power has the upper hand. One ex is : DMK chief Karunanidhi's arrest and the way he was manhandled.

People are more aware of the current affairs because of the media.

Tamilnadu is suffering a lot in the hands of these 2 political parties. I think SRM has some upper hand in the existing government.

I have been checking ur blog for updates almost on a daily basis! Nice to see you back. I have two regrets:

1. Leave the police, who are known to be rogues anyway, but I did not spot a single follow up in the NDTV website on how u had been faring. THere is this basic article on how you have been manhandled along with the cameraman, and another on the news is 'spreading like fire'. I figured that out by browsing thru other sites, whr there were more concerns abt the state of affairs in Chennai, but not on NDTV.

2. THe Chennai police largely consists of village brought-ups, and hence distancing from them would be a better option than placing ur faith on them...esp in a riot situation.

On that note, you have been really brave in covering the incident and brought to light wat had been neglected by other national media channels - including ur own :)

Neodawn - It was meant to be satirical. Frankly i ve had huge brush ups with the Chennai police but never once faced an embarrsing situation. They all have been really polite, sometimes evn very fluent in English. But reading reports like these are really scary!

"...THe Chennai police largely consists of village brought-ups,..."I strongly objected to your generalization that village brought-ups are dangerous in nature... and not whether Chennai police is good or bad...

Hello, That is too rude.NDTV is reasonably good for a news channel. Anyway,that is off the topic. But,Alaphia,there could have been a more in depth news coverage of this incident on NDTV.Why is it that no follow up is being taken? Truly, you have exhibited the true qualites of journalism.As regards, the 'system',well, most things in India are like that, aren't they?Regards,bnap

Hello, What language is this?Alaphia,it would be better if you could edit such posts.And as regards journalistic ethics,well,NDTV is certainly not left biased as much as I can see.Infact,sometimes,they even ridicule their economic policies.And today's politicians!!Well,ow can you compare them with journalists?If it not were for journalists, our country would decay even more exponentially.bnap

Good to know you are back Alaphia. Though i am not from chennai i feel the police in most of our cities are same. They are rude, brash and ill mannered with very few exceptions.

Well what else can you expect from such a police force which is used to indulge in such high handedness frequently. The system is rotten to the core. One has to keep on it i suppose to make any change whatsoever.

Hi bnap,I have deleted some of those filthy comments people left. You know how it is.... cyberspace is full of cowards who can never pluck up the courage to say what they really want to in flesh and blood. Such comments throws no light on anything but an empty head.

Your questions defy logic...I dont know if they were supposed to sound rhetorical but if they were not... well I dont think i can even begin to answer them. But I have to agree with you that some journalists are indeed worse than politicians....but not all. If that were the case MP's would never be exposed taking bribes for asking questions, the Bofors scam would've never come to light and who would've heard of Tehelka?

Actually I was hesitant to carry this our own assault as a big piece of news. I felt that couldnt become the bigger story. The story was primarily about the strike...thats perhaps why you didnt see anything detailed on the NDTV website.

But i have learnt some bitter lessons about the police force... worse about a few journalits who have sold their soul to the establishment.